Friday, May 24, 2013

North Korea's hawkish Gen. Kim Kyok-sik has been named army chief, while his predecessor Hyon Yong-chol has apparently been moved to the 5th Corps in the central region. The equally hawkish Kim Yong-chol, the director of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, has apparently been appointed vice army chief.

Kim Kyok-sik was in charge of troops on the western coast during a naval skirmish in November 2009, in March 2010 when the North sank the Navy corvette Cheonan, and when it shelled Yeonpyeong Island later that year.

Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was fond of the general's belligerent ways and described him as a "fighter." Intelligence reports after the inauguration of former President Lee Myung-bak warned that Kim Kyok-sik had been appointed to lead a provocation against the South, but Seoul failed to heed the warning.

Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer and all it evokes: vacations, slower workweeks, casual dress codes, getting the pool ready and pulling out the outdoor furniture.

It would seem an ideal time to take a break, but our ability to unplug and relax is under assault. A three-day weekend? We can barely get through three waking hours without working, new research shows. The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes. Meanwhile, government data from 2011 says 35 percent of us work on weekends, and those who do average five hours of labor, often without compensation—or even a thank you. The other 65 percent were probably too busy to answer surveyors' questions.

There's plenty of debate among economists and psychologists whether the economy is to blame, or we do this to ourselves. There's little arguing that the concept of a Sabbath is in serious danger.

"It's like an arms race … everything is an emergency," said Tanya Schevitz, spokeswoman for Reboot, an organization trying help people unplug more often. "We have created an expectation in society that people will respond immediately to everything with no delay. It's unhealthy, and it's unproductive, and we can't keep going on like this."

Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil by Group, From 1980 to 2005, According to FBI Database

CNN recently published an article entitled Study: Threat of Muslim-American terrorism in U.S. exaggerated; according to a study released by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “the terrorist threat posed by radicalized Muslim-Americans has been exaggerated.”

Yet, Americans continue to live in mortal fear of radical Islam, a fear propagated and inflamed by right wing Islamophobes. If one follows the cable news networks, it seems as if all terrorists are Muslims. It has even become axiomatic in some circles to chant: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslims.” Muslims and their “leftist dhimmi allies” respond feebly, mentioning Waco as the one counter example, unwittingly affirming the belief that “nearly all terrorists are Muslims.”

But perception is not reality. The data simply does not support such a hasty conclusion. On the FBI’s official website, there exists a chronological list of all terrorist attacks committed on U.S. soil from the year 1980 all the way to 2005. That list can be accessed here (scroll down all the way to the bottom).

To be honest, I already knew this even before this information, that the exaggerations were the result of propaganda for oil / power / special interest groups. However, I do find one particular piece if information interesting: that those "crying out in suffering", those "claiming to be persecuted" and in turn blaming the evil Mooslums, are themselves responsible for a greater portion of terrorism. Backed by facts. Solid numbers. Indisputable. I bet if we look outside of America to the Middle East, we'd find the exact same situation there.

Also strange is that in the Middle East, one portion of people provide us with great resources and essentially the engineering, philosophical, mathematical, astronomical, medical etc. backgrounds to our modern way of life, while another group gives us... demands to bomb other countries, massive military bills, and in order words, essentially nothing, yet they retain support based on a highly dubious interpretation of a few verses in the Bible. Does this make sense? Shouldn't we treat all fairly and base our reactions on how they, themselves, behave? This isn't the Cultural Revolution where someone's interpretation of something else rules our minds; we're supposed to be independent thinkers who use intelligence, not emotion, to guide our decisions.

Over objections of Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the House approved a concealed weapons bill today that is aimed at ending Illinois’ status as the last state in the nation without a law to allow its citizens to carry guns in public.

But the gun bill backed by House Speaker Michael Madigan goes to a Senate where President John Cullerton has denounced the proposal because it would override local gun laws like Chicago’s assault weapons ban.

Cullerton’s stance tempered the House victory, but sponsoring Rep. Brandon Phelps contended it is critical to move forward because Illinois faces next Friday’s deadline for the spring session’s adjournment and a court order that gives the state June 9 to fashion a law. A federal appeals court struck down the state’s ban on concealed carry.

“After years of debating this issue,” said Phelps, the state legislature’s leading gun rights advocate, “it is incredibly difficult if not darn near impossible to come to a middle ground on this issue. Every legislator on this floor has a different opinion when it comes to concealed-carry policy.

“Even among us gun-rights legislators and even among the gun-control legislators, our ideals of the perfect concealed-carry legislation is not identical,” Phelps said. “There is not a bill that we could possibly draw up in which every single legislator on this floor would be perfectly happy with. We live in Illinois. We never thought this day would come."

Police appeared to put plastic gloves and a forensic suit on one of the suspects (right) removed from the Pakistan International Airlines flight PK709, which was bound for Manchester, after it landed at Stansted. An RAF jet was scrambled (left) following an incident around 10 minutes before the plane, which departed from Lahore, was due to land at 2pm. Police have said the incident is being treated as a criminal offence. According to one of the passengers, the aircraft's cabin crew said two men had repeatedly tried to get into the cockpit. Police have said the two arrested men were British nationals.

The second Muslim convert who allegedly executed Lee Rigby in Woolwich has been identified as Michael Adebowale, a probation officer's son radicalised as a teenager, it emerged today.

The 22-year-old British citizen of Nigerian descent and Michael Adebolajo, 28, ran the soldier down with their car before 'hacking, chopping and cutting' at his body like 'crazed animals' screaming 'Allah Akbar!’ – an Islamic phrase meaning ‘God is great’, witnesses said.

With Rigby's body left in the street Adebolajo ranted on film: 'You people will never be safe' before the pair waited 14 minutes for armed police to arrive and were gunned down waving firearms, knives and a machete.

The Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia has notified WHO of an additional laboratory-confirmed case of infection with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

The fatal case was reported from Al-Qaseem region in the Central part of the country and is not related to the cluster of cases reported from Al-Ahsa region in the Eastern part of the country. The patient was a 63-year-old man with an underlying medical condition who was admitted to a hospital with acute respiratory distress on 15 May 2013 and died on 20 May 2013. Investigation into contacts of this case is ongoing.

The Saudi authorities are also continuing the investigation into the outbreak that began in a health care facility since the beginning of April 2013 in Al-Ahsa. To date, a total of 22 patients including 10 deaths have been reported from the outbreak.

Globally, from September 2012 to date, WHO has been informed of a total of 44 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 22 deaths.

No new human cases of the H7N9 virus have been recorded in China for a week, national health authorities said, for the first time since the outbreak began in March.

One previously infected patient died in the week beginning between May 13, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a statement late Monday, taking the total number of fatalities from the virus to 36.

But the number of confirmed cases was unchanged at 130. Of those, 72 have recovered and been discharged from hospital, it said, adding that no evidence of human-to-human transmission had been detected so far.

Experts fear the possibility of the virus mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, with the potential to trigger a pandemic.

An outbreak of respiratory illness in Alabama turned out to be a "pseudocluster" of unrelated disease, an official said.

Testing ruled out coronaviruses and the novel H7N9 avian influenza now affecting China, according to Mary McIntyre, MD, of the Alabama Department of Public Health.

State officials had been concerned by seven cases -- including two deaths -- in which people presented with fever, cough and shortness of breath of unknown origin, said McIntyre, who is assistant state health officer for disease control and prevention.

"It was a pseudocluster," she told MedPage Today. The seven patients had influenza A (H1N1), rhinovirus, or bacterial pneumonia, and in some cases a combination of the illnesses.

The H7N9 bird flu virus can be transmitted not only through close contact but by airborne exposure, a team at the University of Hong Kong found after extensive laboratory experiments.

Though the virus appears to have been brought under control recently, the researchers urged the Hong Kong authorities to maintain strict surveillance, which should include not only poultry but humans and pigs.

Taipei, May 24 (CNA) A Taiwanese man who is the only person in the country found to have contracted the deadly H7N9 bird flu virus has recovered and was discharged from National Taiwan University (NTU) Hospital Friday.

The patient, identified only by his family name Lee, had been hospitalized for 35 days with the virus that affected the functions of his internal organs.

At the height of Lee's illness, the hospital had to resort to intubation, an artificial lung and dialysis in an effort to save his life.

Taipei, May 24 (CNA) Taiwan has received a shipment of candidate vaccine viruses from the United States to develop a vaccine against human infections of H7N9 avian influenza, the Department of Health (DOH) said Friday.

The candidate viruses, provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were delivered to Taiwan May 18, Deputy Health Minister Lin Tzou-yien.

The CDC officially notified Taiwan May 23 that the candidate viruses had passed biological safety tests and could be handled in a Biosafety Level-2 facility, Lin said.

In addition, Japan has also agreed to provide Taiwan with H7N9 candidate viruses, according to the DOH.

Scientists are gaining a better understanding of the H7N9 bird flu that has sickened more than 130 people -- and killed more than 30 -- in China and Taiwan since February.

The latest research into the virus, which before this year had never been detected in humans, was published Thursday (subscription required for full text) in the online edition of the journal Science.

Working with ferrets, an animal that is often studied to gain insight into flu transmissibility in people, scientists in China, Canada and the U.S. found that H7N9 could spread from one ferret to another -- suggesting that it could also pass between humans. "Under appropriate conditions human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 virus may be possible," the co-authors wrote.

But H7N9 only spread efficiently when the ferrets were placed in the same cage and came into direct contact. The virus did not transmit easily between animals in adjacent cages, who couldn't touch but could breathe in the droplets from each others' sneezes and coughs.

BONA, Mo. -- Officials at Whiteman Air Force Base confirm it was one of their fighter jets that clipped and broke a power line crossing Stockton Lake.

It happened Wednesday afternoon near Bona in northeastern Dade County.

Danielle Johnston, a public affairs officer with the Air Force Reserve's 442nd Fighter Wing at Whiteman says two pilots were conducting low-altitude training flights over the lake in their A-10 Thunderbolt "Warthogs," when one of the jets flew too close to a power line and broke it.

Photos and texts taken from Trayvon Martin's mobile phone have been released by lawyers for the man charged with shooting dead the 17-year-old last year in Florida.

They include conversations with a friend about fighting, smoking pot and being forced to move out of his mother’s house because of trouble at school, as well as images of a gun and what looks to be a potted marijuana plant.

A hearing next week is due to decide if the information can be used at the murder trial for Sanford neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

A tweet by Sally Bercow about Lord McAlpine which he claims named him as a paedophile was libellous, the High Court has ruled.

The wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow is being sued by the Tory peer for damages after she named him on Twitter last year.

The posting appeared two days after a November 2 Newsnight report wrongly implicated the former Conservative Party treasurer in allegations of sex abuse at Bryn Estyn children's home in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mrs Bercow has always denied that the tweet - "Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*" - was defamatory, and has apologised publicly and privately to the former Conservative Party treasurer for the distress caused to him.

Attorney General Eric Holder personally signed off on the controversial search warrant that identified Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen as a ‘possible co-conspirator’ in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, an unnamed law enforcement official has claimed.

Rosen, who has not been charged in the case, was the target of a search warrant that enabled Justice Department investigators to secretly seize his private emails after an FBI agent said he had ‘asked, solicited and encouraged … (a source) to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information.’

The reporter's emails were seized, with a judge's approval, as part of the prosecution of Stephen Kim, a State Department adviser who is accused of leaking secret information about North Korea.

A colliding truck may have triggered the collapse on Thursday of part of a four-lane freeway bridge that sent vehicles and drivers tumbling into a frigid river in Washington state, officials said.

A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation into what led part of the Interstate 5 bridge to fall into the Skagit River 55 miles north of Seattle was expected to continue on Friday.

Two of the three people rescued from the river were hospitalized with hypothermia, but no one died, officials said.

The Woolwich murder will be used by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, to revive plans for a "snooper's charter", allowing police and security services to monitor internet use, Conservative sources indicated tonight.

Ms May was furious when Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, vetoed the inclusion of the contentious scheme in this month's Queen's Speech on the grounds that it was disproportionate and an invasion of privacy.

She faced demands from senior figures in all parties to strengthen the powers of the police and security services after Wednesday's killing of an off-duty soldier.

China's state media says an envoy from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has warned there is no guarantee of peace on the Korean Peninsula, but also stressed that his country is willing to hold talks with all sides to find a solution.

The Xinhua News Agency quoted North Korean Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae as making the comments Friday to Gen. Fan Changlong in Beijing on the third day of a fence-mending visit to his country's most important ally.

Choe's mission marks the first high-level, face-to-face contact between the two governments in a half-year, an unusual gap during which Pyongyang angered Beijing by conducting rocket launches and nuclear tests and other saber-rattling.

The Syrian opposition in exile met on Thursday to decide whether to attend a peace conference that the United States and Russia see as a crucial path to ending two years of civil war.

Under international pressure to swiftly resolve internal divisions, the Syrian National Coalition began talks in Istanbul to elect a coherent leadership and decide on the conference which could take place in Geneva in the coming weeks.

In the lurid scene of the red-handed knifeman describing his motives for hacking to death a British soldier in broad daylight, perhaps the most chilling aspect for many Londoners was the man's unmistakably familiar accent.

Michael Adebolajo, 28, who was filmed wielding a bloody meat cleaver and butcher's knife as the soldier lay dead on the road behind him, was not a maladjusted immigrant like Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but a true Londoner born and bred.

Bailiffs are profiting at the expense of struggling families because of cuts to council tax benefits, according to Citizens Advice.

The debt advice charity also warned that "many more" vulnerable people were in danger of being pushed into the hands of bailiffs, which it said often overstated their powers, acted aggressively and piled on excessive fees.

It claimed the number of people worried about paying their council tax had "rocketed" since government welfare reforms were introduced last month.

British police have made two further arrests and raided houses across London following the brutal murder of a serving soldier who survived a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister David Cameron appealed for calm after 25-year-old Lee Rigby was butchered outside a London army barracks on Wednesday, while an extra 1200 officers were deployed on the capital's streets in a bid to reassure the public.

The intelligence agencies meanwhile came under scrutiny after it emerged that the two murder suspects, who were injured in police gunfire at the scene, had been known to the security services.